dp
The FBI investigation started as a direct result of Comey's firing. Which makes sense strictly on CYA reasons: The FBI director was directly asked for 'loyalty' and to overlook an investigation on Flynn by the POTUS. If it came up at a later date that the POTUS was a traitor, a lack of investigation from the FBI on the subject would've looked really bad.
Your head is buried in the sand.
Eyes wide open.
Disagreement with you does not equal betrayal of the USA or complicity with its enemies.
Grandiose much?
Has nothing to do with agreeing with ME - has EVERYTHING to do with your sperm-shielding of a criminal traitor and carrying his water 24/7.
Complicit much?
the only shield i'm carrying in this thread is for the cascade of bs coming from your general direction. having a different take than you isn't complicity with the Russkies or coddling Trump.
here's a close reading of the tea leaves by Wittes in the wake of the disclosure of the -- possibly ongoing -- FBI CI investigation.
Put simply, I don’t believe the FBI, having an open counterintelligence investigation, simply opened a new criminal investigation of obstruction in the wake of the Comey firing. I think there likely was—and still is—one umbrella investigation with a number of different threads. That one investigation was (and is) about Russia. And it had (and still has), as a subsidiary matter, a number of subsidiary files open about people on the U.S. side who had links to Russian government activity. Each of these files had (and still has) all of the counterintelligence and criminal tools available to the U.S. government at its disposal.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-if-...test-bombs
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-12-2019 at 12:39 AM.
when the president sought to impair the investigation, having declared both in the draft letter dismissing Comey and to Lester Holt that his action was connected in some way to the Russia investigation, that raised both potential criminal questions and major counterintelligence questions—questions that could only have been reinforced when Trump later announced to senior Russian government officials that he had relieved pressure on himself by acting as he did. It did so both because it threatened the investigation itself and because it fit directly into a pattern of interface between Trump campaign officials and Russian government actors that they were already investigating.
Remember that the standards of predication are quite low. To open an investigation, the FBI doesn’t need proof of a crime, or even probable cause of criminal activity. It need only see evidence that “An activity cons uting a federal crime or a threat to the national security has or may have occurred, is or may be occurring, or will or may occurand the investigation may obtain information relating to the activity or the involvement or role of an individual, group, or organization in such activity” (emphasis added). “May” is a very flexible word. So ask yourself this: If you were the FBI and already investigating Russian activity and you saw the president’s actions in May 2017, would you believe that it “may” cons ute a criminal office or “may” cons ute a threat to national security or both?
What is the significance of all of this? I have two big takeaways.
First, if this analysis is correct, it mostly—though not entirely—answers the question of the legal basis of the obstruction investigation. The president’s lawyers, Barr in his memo, and any number of conservative commentators have all argued that Mueller cannot reasonably be investigating obstruction offenses based on the president’s actions within his Article II powers in firing Comey; such actions, they contend, cannot possibly violate the obstruction laws. While this position is disputed, a great many other commentators, including me, have scratched their heads about Mueller’s obstruction theory.
But if the predicate for the investigation was rooted in substantial part in counterintelligence authorities—that is, if the theory was not just that the president may have violated the criminal law but also that he acted in a fashion that may cons ute a threat to national security—that particular legal puzzle goes away. After all, the FBI doesn’t need a possible criminal violation to open a national security investigation.
Second, if it is correct that the FBI’s principle interest in obstruction was not as a discrete criminal fact pattern but as a national security threat, this significantly blurs the distinction between the obstruction and collusion aspects of the investigation. In this construction, obstruction was not a problem distinct from collusion, as has been generally imagined. Rather, in this construction, obstruction was the collusion, or least part of it. The obstruction of justice statutes become, in this understanding, merely one set of statutes investigators might think about using to deal with a national security risk—specifically, the risk of a person on the U.S. side coordinating with or supporting Russian activity by shutting down the investigation.
It was about Russia. It was always about Russia. Full stop.
to me, the main question remaining is whether Trump was smart enough to realize what he was doing.
not an easy question to settle without more info.
if all the tools of counterintelligence are in effect and were then, the FBI may have the receipts.
I'm not sure if this story is more embarrassing for the FBI or the NYT
Time will tell
It's more embarrassing for Trump.
counter-intelligence, not criminal track thinking:
https://www.justsecurity.org/49682/c...iminal-threat/To wit, there is no question that Russia made multiple, unprecedented attempts to penetrate a U.S. presidential campaign, that its approaches were not rebuffed, and that its contacts were sensitive enough that everyone, to a person, has concealed them. These facts might never be adjudicated inside a courtroom – they may not even be illegal – but they present a clear and present national security threat that we cannot ignore.
Pretty embarrassing for Trump actually
I agree with this, but think what comes just after is overblown:
the truth is that “collusion” with the Kremlin doesn’t have to be criminal to be dangerous. If the Trump campaign received offers of assistance from Russia, and they did nothing to discourage that help (or even encouraged it), they are indebted to a foreign adversary whose national interests are opposed to those of the United States. You can be sure that at some point, Putin will come to collect, if he has not done so
Darrin's the deflector in chief.
It should be a full time job around here, but Darrin's lazy. Plenty of other bobbleheads to pick up the slack.
Sad to see you become another collusion conspira .
"Three may keep a secret, if two are dead."
I'm not quite there yet.
Crimes and elaborate conspiracies needn't have been committed for the FBI to validly open a CI investigation; POTUS interfering or attempting to interfere with such an investigation could be a threat to national security and collusion with a foreign power in and of itself.
Am I certain it was? No in way.
Let the chips fall where they may. At some point Mueller will have to show his hand.
I am pretty sure that if it was Obama that was betraying the USA -
you would not be asking that same question or giving the same benefit of the doubt.
This is the big difference in a white man committing high crimes in this country.
If this actor had been a black president - impeachment would have happened two years ago.
I agree with the last thing you said but not the first.
Darrin upset Black President was so clean.
I pleased to learn that the deep state did take action. The "deep state" isn't something nefarious -- it's people in the government doing their job.
Sorry, you are not believable.
How can a guy who was so smart to win the presidency against all odds - and still pulled it off (legally or illegally)
is also NOT smart enough to commit crimes.
Ignorance of the law is not a defense. He will still be prosecuted.
The fact that a white man who commits crimes is treated like an infant not aware of his actions is a bad trend in our country.
The Las Vegas terrorist - was not called a terrorist - he was talked about as if he must have had some mental sickness or the head scratching of why such a normal man would suddenly snap and kill and injure hundreds.
The traitor white man in office - when his ery is revealed is passed off as -
"did he know that his campaign mgr was conspiring?" "did he know that his son, son in law, were making deals with russians?"
Yet - the entire planet knows and agrees that in trump world - NOTHING is done without his consent and knowledge and he is praised for being the dealmaker and savvy tycoon-
except when he commits crimes -
only then - does he become a helpless infant who maybe is not aware that taking millions from dictators and betraying your country might somehow be illegal and treasonous.
Give me a in break.
my god you're a dreadful bore
Do you ever rethink what you thought you knew before when new facts come to light?
Isn't it kind of weird not to reevaluate? To never change your mind? It's a sign of indoctrination not to.
You don't have to go all the way to elaborate campaign conspiracies and underlying crimes to see serious problems. This bit of news moves the needle. Not all the way to the adamantine certainty occupied by our stalwart, bloviating friend, SpursHomer, but in the same direction.
You'd have to be kind of dense to not even consider it.
Trump does not even have to realize what he's doing -- or did -- to put national security at hazard and favor the interests of a foreign country that has been more or less grooming him for 30 years.
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